The Anxiety of Atoms
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "He's lonely. In both parts of his life—the world with her and the world without her—he realizes he's lonely, and it's so strange standing there between the two of them. To be lonely and needed and needing. To be in between." An episode insert for 47 Seconds, references to Set Up/Countdown, Pandora/Linchpin, and Cops & Robbers


Title: The Anxiety of Atoms

WC: ~1500

Summary: "He's lonely. In both parts of his life—the world with her and the world without her—he realizes he's lonely, and it's so strange standing there between the two of them. To be lonely and needed and needing. To be in between."

Episodes: An insert for 47 Seconds, set in the morgue when Castle leaves to take Alexis home.

A/N: Don't know how to explain this, since I've already gone to the "weird story is weird" so recently. Watched 47 Seconds last night and Brain is spending half its time writing about bunnies and the other half thinking that this episode looks, comparatively, like happy fun-time land. Please excuse Brain.

* * *

Why I came here, I know not;

where I shall go it is useless to inquire -

in the midst of myriads

of the living and the dead worlds,

stars, systems, infinity,

why should I be anxious about an atom?

- George Gordon, Lord Byron

* * *

He doesn't think he's ever been this tired before.

Not when the cold took them. When he felt the sluggish effort of every cell in his body and hers. Molecules barely buzzing and stopping as his eyes slipped closed and she fell away from him, her final words lost to it. The absolute cessation of motion. Not even then.

Not when water and fear dragged at every part of him. Clawed at him and slowed his frantic, clumsy movements to almost nothing. To the barest displacement of anything. Not even when he was sure he'd never save her. The he couldn't kick long or hard or fast enough toward light to save her. Not even then.

He's never been this tired. He's never been so weary and done.

It comes without warning. The break in the case. A bag. Dull, inconspicuous blue, but something at last to go on. A grim spark, and she catches fire like she always does. When it's this. When it's work and a wrong that she can right, she catches fire.

He does, too, even though it's borrowed. Even though he empties quickly on days like this. Evil on this kind of scale. Purposeless and cold. Even knowing what the stakes are. Lives that will go on. That won't stop in one terrible instant if they can figure this out. If they're in time for once. Even then, it empties him out. It takes the air and everything in him that's any good for light and heat.

But he can't be near her and not find more, however deep he has to dig for it. He burns when she does.

So they turn together into the next chapter of this. They bend themselves to the new piece. The thing to worry and tug and shape into sense by the light the two of them give off. The light she makes and he borrows on days like this.

They turn together, but the other world he lives in pulls at him. Suddenly and absolutely pulls him. Back and away from her. Out of one and into the other, and he's never been this tired before.

He turns to Kate and he blazes up in something like anger. Not at her. Not exactly. At the world. The two worlds he lives in. With her and without her. Home and not home.

It's something like anger at history and the unfolding of events like this. Purposeless and cold. Dropping tragedy like stones and sinking them deep. Down into bedrock and making the way difficult and dangerous and so slow it hardly resembles motion. Anger at the inalterable things that keep her from him. That are still keeping her from him after all this time.

He's lonely. In both parts of his life—the world with her and the world without her—he realizes he's lonely, and it's so strange standing there between the two of them. To be lonely and needed and needing. To be in between.

But he asks her for a minute and she gives it, of course. She's restless and eager to be off. To understand and subdue and uncover. There was a time when she'd have left him behind. She doesn't now, though. She retreats to the edges and he feels her hovering. Tugging that world with her and the borderlands of each bump and settle and feel for a moment like they fit together. Like they could fit together if only he weren't so tired. If only he could see how.

He goes to his daughter, and even like this she fills him up again. Air and fuel for the fire.

Pale and not-quite crying, she gives him memory. She shares his reverence for objects. The parts of self that people carry and leave behind. Burdens and blessings together and he knows the weight of that right now. Like no one else in either world—in both—he knows the weight of work like this.

He draws her to him. He draws her away from the edge of one world and back to center. To where she belongs and where he'd keep her if he could. She stands a moment. Plants her feet and tries to insist and he wants help. He's so tired and he wants it not to be complicated. He wants someone to lean on in this world, too, and he wants not to be alone.

He thinks about another blaze. Another explosion rocking through him. Shaking the core of him and rattling his teeth. He thinks about his own body turning toward his mother's for shelter. To give or take, he's still not sure. Maybe both and maybe that's how it always is. From mother to son and father to daughter and back again.

He doesn't remember which. He only remembers the long-ago promise. The one he'd asked and Kate had given. Laughing and rolling her eyes at him, then, but both of them knowing he'd never ask and she'd never answer without meaning it. Without each of them meaning it.

He remembers only that. The last thing on his mind before everything was white and roaring inside. He remembers being sorry to leave her with something so impossible. That promise to look after Alexis and how impossible it would be for both of them. The last thing before color and sound and light left the world in a rush.

And the first thing when life unexpectedly went on. When his breath went in and out and he was grateful for the piercing whistle in his ears. Grateful to hear her calling for him. To draw breath and answer back. Beyond grateful to have her near, crouching in front of him with eyes wide open and her heart finally on her lips. One world for too brief a moment. Not impossible, but something to long for. Something close enough to want.

He turns with Alexis under his arm. He shepherds her toward the locker room and makes his hands let go. Tells her quietly that he'll wait and they'll go home together.

He turns again, and Kate is drifting toward him. Lowering her phone. Ending the pretense that she busied herself with something else. That she was doing anything other than standing on the outside looking in.

He steps toward her. He closes the final distance and means to apologize. He studies the scuffed tiles of the floor and calls up the familiar words. He means to tell her that he'll be back soon. That he has to go. He has to take this sad young woman and tuck her into a little girl's bed for as long as he can.

He means to apologize, but then they're toe to toe and his words are gone. She's standing inches from him with her back straight and her head bowed. Her hair catches the light and she's an absurd thing of beauty in this awful place. This awful moment.

He's so tired, and his words are gone.

She says something. Mundane business. That of course he's going. That of course he'll take Alexis home.

He nods. Responds in monosyllables, and he's distantly grateful that she's making the apology for him. That she's crowding him from one world into the other when he can't lift his feet to go.

He looks up to thank her. He meets her eyes and the way she's looking at him—the way she's really looking at him—he doesn't know if it's a terrible mistake or the only right thing he's done in months. The only right thing either of them has done in such a long time.

It feels possible. One world. It feels like he could put an arm around her right here and now. Whatever she remembers or doesn't. Whatever she's ready for or not. It feels possible.

That he could hold her to him and tell her that he's tired and he's lonely and he wants help with this. With his mother and daughter and her father and the hard places between two worlds. It feels like he could ask her to spend whatever time they have trying to make sense of any of it, and she might say she'd try.

"I'll come back," he says. Someone says and it seems to be his breath and tongue and mouth they're saying it with.

She shakes her head. "No."

"You'll call me, though? If anything . . ."

But she shakes her head again. "No."

He expects it to hurt. To diminish and hollow him out. He expects to feel foolish that it seemed possible so recently when she's telling him to go.

But she says it with a secret, defiant smile and her hand comes to rest on the lapel of his jacket.

He hates the word. He hates the declaration. Repetition and insistence like wind at his back.

He wants to argue, but her fingers curl against his chest, just for a moment. They hold tight. Pale fingers on dark fabric. An anchor even when she's sending him away. "You won't come back and I won't call. Not tonight. You need to be home."

He expects it to hurt.

But the way she's looking at him, it's the nearest thing to a kiss she's given him.


End file.
